interstellar5555 | ☆TRACK V: I WILL TWIST THE KNIFE PT. 2

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☆TRACK V: I WILL TWIST THE KNIFE PT. 2

Who: Everyone in the last part of the log.
What: Everyone has a terrible night.
When: December 7th, 2054
Where: Naomi's ocean side mansion, followed by a secret Pride laboratory.
Warnings: Violence, blood, and at least one murder. Vague gore. NPCs being unhinged in a threatening way, though it's possible to have your character avoid ended up in the ballroom if you don't want to see this mess.

☆I WILL TWIST THE KNIFE

The bubble has burst. The chaos of the night’s violence has finally boiled over into something uncontrollable – blood has been spilt, screams have been heard. No matter where you are in the mansion, you know by now that something is acutely wrong. Multiple members of Pride have been hurt – possibly killed – and you may still have no idea why.

Some will try to escape. Some will try to fight back. Yet, as any rebellion starts to descend, a piercing note - a melodic cry - will summon you towards the ballroom. It can be resisted, in part - but only as far as you find yourself frozen in place instead of moving forward, at least while this spell holds. It's drawing you to the source...if you follow it, maybe you can stop it. The compulsion is strong for members of both labels.

The cry seems to echo long past its termination point, to be heard wherever you are. If followed, it will bring you to Naomi Rivers in the center of the ballroom, her expression creased with strain. Though you may desperately want to strike her, something intangible is holding you back.

"No!" she shouts at any Virgo nearby. "It isn't done! You need to...you need to finish this!" She'll point desperately at the nearby Pride, rendered unable to flee. "Get them now!"

You don't want to.

"Do it!"

The compulsion weighs heavily on you - for Virgo, to act, and for Pride to surrender themselves. All subtly has disappeared. This last effort is unconcealed and nearly hysterical. You feel yourself slipping beneath the soundwaves. Power rolls off of her, the energy thick in the air, like something you can taste and smell.

You can't do this.

"I command-"

The fabric of space-time cracks like a peal of thunder. All at once, the spell shatters.

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And suddenly, Tiger is there.

He's obviously terrified. He sees the blood, and he sees how she just seemed to appear there, and...for a moment he thinks she's dead. But as soon as its clear she's not, he can't help but basically leap onto her medical table, clinging to her for some semblance of safety.

"Kido!" is all he manages, at first.

What. Child. Oh god, what? She wraps her arms around him without really grasping what's happening. It's instinctual. One hand's in his hair and the other's around his shoulders.

"C-careful, kid. I'm not sure I'm all together, here.

She's gotta still be bleeding right? Like wounds like that one didn't just go away. Stitches? Those would rip open if she wasn't careful but it didn't hurt like it did before. Is she drugged? She wishes she knew what the hell was happening. But despite the weak warning, she isn't letting go.

"S-Sorry," he says, but he can't bring himself to let go regardless. He's not actively sobbing at the moment, but he's worried and tense. What's more, he's somehow allowing this embrace to happen in public without any defensiveness at all. My, how things change.

"I didn't...I didn't know what happened and you weren't here and..."

God, no one in Pride is ever going to take him seriously again but he just can't stop.

Tiger, I am sorry to inform you, no one in Pride takes you seriously anyway. Most of System Crash is kinda a joke.

Pieces are starting to come back together. She was with Celty. Celty was promising to look out for Tiger and Molly. She must not have found them... Maybe she'd never even left. Kido had been in a bad state...

But Tiger's in one piece and in her arms and that means he probably wasn't hurt like she was. That's... probably good.

"I'm fine." Yeah Kido, say that when you don't look like you were victim in a slasher flick. "What happened? Are you okay? Did Celty find you?"

Not to teenage girls it's not! And really, who else matters. Which is perhaps a lost cause in Pride at least as most of them aren't teenaged girls. What a waste.

"Someone from Virgo tried to stab me but someone else stopped them. Someone was trying to get Molly, too!" He'd been the one that had stopped that one. He hadn't taken it as seriously at the time, but geez...

"Who's Celty?"

"So long as you guys are okay, it doesn't matter." She pulls back to get a look at his face and make sure he's not... actually hurt. She leaves her hands on his shoulders. "How long have you been down here?" It's going to stress him out. It's stressing her out. Christ she needs a shower. She needs--she needs a place to breathe. She's glad she's pulled away because she's sure he'll notice as she starts shaking.

He's not, ostensibly. Besides maybe emotionally. This whole place is way too familiar in a really terrifying way, and he's spent the entire time down here feeling like he's waiting for the other foot to stop.

"Like...an hour," he says, looking up and at the rest of the room warily. "I think it's...it's the same as..." He really shouldn't say.

"Yeah." Kido knows what he's saying. She nods for a moment and drops her hands. Tiger's safe. Molly's safe. She doesn't know where Pinkie and Trucy are but she didn't see them at the party, either. She clenches her fists in her lap. Then she readjusts herself a little. She drops her head, and lifts her hands, covering her face. It smells like blood. She smells like blood. She feels like death warmed over. God, she is death warmed over. "Turn around." Her voice cracks. Don't look at her.

He doesn't - not immediately, anyway. He's too confused.

"Wait...why? What's wrong?"

"Just don't look." Please don't look. Her voice is already shaking. She doesn't want to seem weak, not in front of her band. Especially not in front of Tiger. She has to be responsible. She has to be the strong one. Trucy said she's the one who protects them. What a joke, she can't even protect herself.

Edited 2015-12-17 05:24 (UTC)

He looks almost hurt by that sudden demand. He'd been so desperately relieved to see her back here, and now...why? He doesn't understand. Gradually, he shrinks back, pulling away from her. At the last moment, he averts his eyes, looking confused and upset.

She doesn't want him to see her cry. She doesn't cry. She hates crying. But she was so scared when she couldn't move, when no one could see her, when she realized that something terrible was going on and she was lying on the ground useless.

She draws her knees up and curls forward and... well she tries to be quiet about it but she's not great at it so there's these really gross kinda quiet hiccupy noises at first before it just turns into... sobbing.

Tiger sinks down next to the bed, wrapping his arms around his legs. He doesn't really know what to do. She'd demanded so vehemently that he not look at her, he...doesn't have the confidence to go against that. But yet, she's obviously crying.

She never said what happened to her.

It doesn't take long for her to at least try to acknowledge he's still there. Even freaking out, she can't forget she's in a room of people. Her voice is hoarse when she croaks out, "Hey, Tiger?"

(And she tries to hide the whimper that comes after. She's never been this much of a crybaby.)

"...Yeah?" His voice is soft, and patient so far as Tiger goes.

"Don't be scared, okay?" Just ignore that Kido's terrified, please. Don't be scared. There's a lot of reasons to be scared, but... don't.

"You're crying and you told me not to look at you..."

It's said with a sniffle. How is he supposed to be unafraid when she's so upset and he can't even react to it?

"I'm not allowed to be weak."

It sounds dumb coming out of her mouth. But she's not allowed--she always has to be okay. That's what Tiger and Trucy and Pinkie expect. She brushes off trouble. Fear rolls off her like water off a duck, right? At least that's what she tries to be.

"So you can't see."

God the addition makes it worse. She sounds like a kid.

Whatever inner world Kido is living, that's not really the impression that Tiger has gotten from knowing her. She never really seemed more impervious than anyone else, she just...expressed it differently.

"...It's still happening even if I'm not looking at you," his tone is a little bit frustrated, and a little bit pleading. Nobody wins with this kind of thing.

She's living in a slightly delusional one, to be fair. She wants to be strong. She wants to not be afraid. She wants to be the one people can come to--who can get beaten down but still seem okay.

(And she chokes again because that desire... It connects so strongly to the words Mekakushi-danchou, it's almost suffocating.)

"He tried to kill me, Tiger." That's what still happens, too, isn't it? Kido gets stabbed and she just lays there uselessly like everybody she cares about isn't in danger. She is not about that lifestyle.

He looks up at her, over the edge of the bed. He doesn't really want to keep pretending like this, even if she asked him to.

"Who did?"

He's not really surprised. A lot of people got attacked tonight. It doesn't seem like Kido was the only one who got hurt badly, either.

It takes her another second to drop her hands, wiping her eyes. She... shrugs, weakly?

"I don't know. I've never met him."

Tiger is quiet for a moment.

"I don't think they...that they meant anything by it. Really."

He swallows, roughly.

"I guess...maybe you didn't see it because you were hurt but...it sounds like the owner of Virgo made them do it somehow. Through that lady."

She turns her face away just a little. "I don't care."

She doesn't. He tried to kill her, she doesn't want to feel any reasonable emotions right now. She wants to disappear. Maybe it would've been better if he had just killed her. "I... I'm sorry." She scrubs an eye with a palm.

He doesn't answer her, immediately. Instead he just stares into space over his knees.

"...I think we're in a lot of trouble, now."

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